A Valentine's Day on Baker Street
by illuminatachime
Summary: Set after Sherlock's "death." John's moved out of 221b, but decides to visit since it's Valentine's Day. A surprise mystery awaits him inside, and he must follow a trail of candy hearts...


A Valentine's Day on Baker Street

_Sherlock Holmes waited in the shadows, as he'd grown accustomed to over the past several months. He was in his favorite place – 221B Baker Street, and waiting for his best friend. _

_John Watson visited the place irregularly, and Sherlock, being himself, knew the moment that John had decided to visit on this day...it was February 14__th__ – Valentine's Day, and that earned a chuckle from Sherlock._

As if on cue, the door to the main room clicked open and John sighed, closing it behind him. Sherlock took in his familiar scent and grinned, because John was completely unaware of what was about to happen.

John sighed again, ignoring the smell of Sherlock that was seemingly embedded into the walls of this building. He stepped farther into the room and heard a peculiar crunch. Looking down, he removed his foot from the carpet with caution, and saw something green and very small – not bigger than a cubic inch, if his eyes told him the truth. He bent over, delicately picking the green stuff up. It turned out to be a small green heart, one you would find in one of those tiny little boxes, with the words.

He placed the two halves together and squinted at the heart, trying to decipher the two words. Finally, he made them out: _Race me. _

_How could this be here?_ John wondered. It hadn't been here last time, and he certainly hadn't dropped it here – he never ate this sort of thing, even if it was particularly delicious. His mouth watered as he was reminded of the times when he was little, munching on these little, adorable, cordate candies.

Even though he knew it was wrong to eat edible evidence, John gave in and popped the two pieces in his mouth, not caring that he'd just stepped on them with his dirty Londoner soles. The flavor of juicy, green apples swarmed his mouth and the corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile. Sherlock had loved apples, even if he never liked to eat.

John brushed the roaming questions of how it'd gotten there aside, and concluded that Mrs. Hudson had probably been here, ignoring the fact that she didn't have a key.

He took another step, and was greeted by another _crunch. _He glanced down at his loafers again, baffled, and discovered another little candy heart – this time fuschia, with _Mon Amie _written in red, capital letters on its front. John stuffed it into his pocket, mind channeling Sherlock's impeccable detective skills (although John knew he would never be as good as Sherlock) and went to thinking this situation out.

There was another candy, yellow, with _xoxo_ on the side. _What the…?_ John thought as he looked across the carpet. There was another yellow heart, then an orange one, and then a pink one, all in a straight line, all a little over a foot from each other. He scooped them up, reading what they said, telling himself it was greatly important, but really because he knew it's what Sherlock would've done. His heart sent out a glass spike of pain, thinking of Sherlock, as it always did, but this could be a _case. _Robbery? Not ransom. Maybe just someone trying to fool with the ghost of the great Sherlock Holmes…this thought inspired rage inside John, but he kept it hidden.

_Me & You, Crazy 4U, _and _UR it _were all printed on the tiny hearts. He wondered what this could mean; maybe it was a code? John resisted the urge to taste them, even if the promises of lemon, orange, and cherry flavoring called out to him.

Following a line of more heart-shaped candies, John made his way across the room. Orange, blue, blue; _Hold Hands, Boogie, Win Me. _What did these mean? John tried decoding this mess – the colors, anagrams, reversing the words, flavors…nothing was making sense.

_This would've driven Sherlock crazy, _John mused. Another shard of ice-cold pain split through him, and he gasped – the pain was physical, too. More and more candies lined their way across the carpet: orange, orange, purple; _True Love, Be Mine, Soul Mate. _

_What is this?_ John's mind raced; gears of his brain turned round and round, but alas. John couldn't solve this riddle. So as he picked up _Jump 4 Me, My Team, Tres Bien, _and several others, he thought of suspects. None came to mind. John became frustrated as he entered the small hallway outside the bathroom and the bedroom. The line of candies led to the bedroom door, which was closed.

In front of the door, there was a purple heart with _Voila _written on it. He picked it up and added it to his collection of hearts, inside his now-full pocket.

_Sherlock waited under the sheets, and he sensed John approaching the bedroom. _This is going to be so great, _Sherlock thought excitedly. He'd watched John from the shadows ever since that day, and now it was finally safe for him to reveal himself. He'd been waiting so long, forcing himself to be silent, and now the time had finally come. Sherlock was elated. _

John opened the door wearily, finding three more candies. Pink, _Shake It. _Purple, _Play Time. _Green, _Go Go Go. _What could this mean? John stared at the candies in his hands, perplexed. He knelt on the ground, as if thinking this hard about all these small hearts was taking a toll on his energy.

Was this just a joke? Or a trick of the mind? _Let's be honest, John. It's not like you haven't been having hallucinations of him, _a voice in the back of his head shouted. _You miss him like crazy, and nothing's ever enough for you without him. He completed you, and now he's gone, and you're a wreck. You're more than a wreck, you're _dead, _John. When Sherlock killed himself, he killed you, too. Not intentionally; you know you were his world, too. You know he did it to protect you. Sherlock did it because he loved— _

"You're supposed to eat them," came a deep, silky voice from above John's head. John ignored it at first; he was always hearing that voice in his head. But then he realized: This voice was impossibly loud for being in his head; John wasn't sure whether he could actually hear it or not…but the sound echoed in the bedroom, which was new. Maybe this was just his imagination, just him torturing himself further, yearning for insanity…

John kept his eyes looking straight forward, too scared to cast his eyes higher. He studied the paisley print of the deep red comforter that Sherlock had had some odd attachment to. His cheeks went pale, blood rushing to his heart and pumping in his ears. He heard his erratic heartbeat, sounding like feet falling flat on pavement, running, desperately, trying to get to the broken body that was on the ground in front of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, remembered the crowd of passers-by, the gasps of horror; pushing through them to get to him, his _friend –_ why did he say friend? _Soul Mate, _he thought, squeezing the heart-shaped candies, and corrected himself – pushing through them to get to him, his best friend, his _soul mate_, his _world_, and then watching them come out of the hospital with the gurney, picking the damaged body up off of the pavement, oh _god, _the way the dark curls looked as they were lifted from the puddle of blood, dripping and damp, oh god, oh _god, oh god—_

A cylindrical object plunked down on the carpet in front of him, and his eyes caught it halfway to the ground. It was a bottle of liquid, a pint of _milk_.

"You were always getting on me about not buying milk," the voice continued lazily, yet amusedly. "I figured I might try buying some, just this once."

John turned his face upward, and he saw something wonderful. He continued staring incredulously at the figure on the bed, placed so curiously under the sheets. John's eyes ran over the bare chest, the pink skin, the dark curls, the high cheekbones, the blue eyes…and that remarkable mouth. He saw the familiar features of his soul mate, clear as day. Not haunted, like he had been seeing for several months. This, this was real.

This was flesh, blood, and bone. Healthy as he could be, with his drug use and eating habits…tucked under the white, white sheets of his queen-size bed – _Sherlock. Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock. _

"_Sherlock,_" John whispered. The other man raised a gorgeous eyebrow. "Sherlock," John repeated. He said the name another time, and another, stupidly, as if he were a broken record.

"Sherlock," he said again, and finally the eyebrow went from questioning to annoyed.

"John," spoke the marvelously sculpted mouth. "What."

"It's…it's _you,_" John breathed, heartbeat going faster than it ever had. "It's _you_."

"Yes, it's me." Sherlock glanced away, out the window, eyes looking for something that apparently wasn't there.

John rose, striding over to the side of the bed that was closest to Sherlock. Sherlock gazed at him, unfazed, all the way over.

John stood, shaking, next to Sherlock. His face suddenly contorted in rage, and before he could stop himself, his hand lashed out and smacked Sherlock a good one across one of his prominent cheekbones.

"Can't say I didn't deserve that, Dr. Watson," Sherlock replied smartly, resisting the urge to be sarcastic. "I'm…I'm sorry."

"You're insane," John spat. "But then again, I've always known _that._"

"I did it to protect you. You're safe now, you know. You can thank me later," Sherlock said lazily, looking away again to hide his budding tears from the already-sputtering John. "Look. Can we talk about it later?"

John, angry as he was, had to give in to that pouty tone. "Alright," he decided. "What do you want to—"

He was cut off as Sherlock's amazingly strong arm shot out and grabbed him by the sweater vest. John was pulled down and suddenly immersed in Sherlock's embrace, their lips locking passionately.

John moaned, protesting half-heartedly and pressing on Sherlock's bare chest. Quickly, though, he gave himself over to his feelings, and they lost themselves in each other.

Sherlock's tongue slipped into the doctor's mouth, and John's lips parted like they were sighing, as if he'd been waiting for this for ages. And he had been waiting for ages…

He felt Sherlock push something into his mouth. Reluctantly, he broke off, glancing suspiciously at the devilish man underneath him before he crouched above Sherlock's sexy frame and spat whatever-it-was into his hand. It turned out to be another small, candy heart. He glared at Sherlock for two seconds before he was taken apart by Sherlock's smoldering blue eyes.

John bashfully fidgeted with the moist candy, inspecting it as if he wanted Sherlock's approval. He gasped suddenly, as he stared at the small confection.

Orange, the color was. But that wasn't what struck him. It was the tiny red letters, neatly inked onto the heart.

_Marry Me. _

"Sherlock," he gasped again. "Is this—?"

"Yes," Sherlock cut in, blushing slightly.

John smiled, elated, and grasped the other man's face in his hands. Their lips mashed together again, arms locking around each other once more.

"Yes," John moaned. "A million times, yes."

He felt Sherlock smile against his kiss; Sherlock wound his arms around John's torso and rolled over until he was on top of John. The little heart-shaped candies fell out of John's jacket pocket, and Sherlock eyed them.

"You didn't eat them?" He asked, feigning hurt.

"I thought they might be – evidence of – something," John said, flushed.

Sherlock's lower lip jutted out in a pout.

"_Rude._"

_~finis~_


End file.
